The suggestion of a fully informative monetary instrument, as the one we have just described, usually produces immediate, important hesitations with respect to a fundamental question: won't the cheque-invoice be the sophisticated instrument of a new totalitarianism, of never before seen power and oppression by a State which now can know almost everything about its citizens? where will be the personal freedom and privacy, up to now based on anonymity, and very especially on monetary anonymity?

In this chapter we shall try to answer this objection.

1. Justice, the custodian of the monetary archive

In our opinion, the best way to solve this problem consists of appointing the justicial body as the only one in charge of guarding the all-documentary, total, archives of cheque-invoices.

Justice has no direct authority on the people making up the geopolitical community: for this reason it is the best suited to keep watch effectively:

On the respect of the private secret and of personal privacy, to whom everybody has a right. The private secret can only be made public in two well-determined cases:

when we have the written authorization of the interested party, at the foot of the document to be made public;

when there is a Court sentence.

On the respect of professional secrecy, to which everybody has an obligation and a right, irrespective of their profession.

Justice then must be the only body to have a direct access to all the data supplied by the telematic monetary network: the right of access of the State and of private persons will be constitutionally limited to the data of an analytic-statistic type, without mentioning names nor identifying people.

All the equipments making up the telematic monetary network, both human teams and material equipments, will depend on Justice. In order to avoid possible manipulations or errors in the network, it is advisable that both the teams and the equipments will be set up threefold, but completely independent from each other, both with respect to machines and to programmes and people.

Now, with respect to Justice being the only warden of the network, and the only one to have a full access to it, does not mean that this right of access can be used indiscriminately. Law must foresee that Justice will only be allowed to use the information it keeps with respect to a specific case which is being investigated. If the examining magistrate has founded reasons for consulting the monetary instruments related to the case he is investigating, that judge, and only he, will be allowed to examine the related documents, and only these.

2. Independence of Justice

Justice and judges are, in principle, the most suitable for the noble mission of guarding the telematic-monetary archives, because of their training and vocation.

Now, in order to carry out this task in an effective manner, it is necessary for Justice to attain a full independence from the State. It is necessary to find the legal mechanisms to make this independence possible.

A good system would be the legislation of justicial budgets independent from the State budgets, worked out by Justice itself: economic autonomy could constitute a practical basis for the development of a real independence in everyday performances.

3. Suppression of crimes and offences for money

In the contradictory practice of Justice, it is an important progress to be able to rely on the pro-telematic cheque-invoice. The controlled access of judges to the telematic monetary network allows to give to every case investigated the exact antejusticial[1] documentation concerning any type of monetary responsibility. In practice this implies:

The disappearance of crimes and offences committed for money (paid for crimes): in fact, in a monetary system based on the cheque-invoice, the transfer of money from one current account to another necessarily implies the exchange of a well-defined merchandise, and this, of course, must be legal. Without merchandise there can be no cheque-invoice.

As far as the other crimes are concerned, illegal acts or responsibilities implying some monetary dimension, it is evident that this will be always perfectly documented.

As far as the possibility of issuing false cheque-invoices is concerned, it is quite possible, and even sure, that they will be made; but in the long run they will be found out by the monetary network itself, which will have the necessary mechanisms available to do so.

Finally, it is certain that human intelligence and cunning will invent a great number of new crimes of a monetary dimension, still to be discovered; but it is not now the time to discover them; when they will become apparent the most suitable solutions will be found.

Notes:

1. I.e.: a documentation established prior to the beginning of the investigation.